Speaking of calm debate, I've noticed there was no discussion about the Freakonomics podcast on the topic. http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/02/14/ ... o-podcast/A very careful look at how to reduce violent crime in the US. Surely, somebody listens to Freakonomics, read the books?

Why should we? I'm pretty sure you said we can make statistics say whatever we want? So now when they are saying something you like we should listen when you ignore peer-reviewed academic research on gun violence?

Speaking of calm debate, I've noticed there was no discussion about the Freakonomics podcast on the topic. http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/02/14/ ... o-podcast/A very careful look at how to reduce violent crime in the US. Surely, somebody listens to Freakonomics, read the books?

Why should we? I'm pretty sure you said we can make statistics say whatever we want? So now when they are saying something you like we should listen when you ignore peer-reviewed academic research on gun violence?

Why should you? It's an economist's approach to the topic.Say what? USAToday polls are not peer reviewed. A peer-reviewed survey would discuss the issues with their data and what steps they took to overcome the ones they could address.

Speaking of calm debate, I've noticed there was no discussion about the Freakonomics podcast on the topic. http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/02/14/ ... o-podcast/A very careful look at how to reduce violent crime in the US. Surely, somebody listens to Freakonomics, read the books?

I read the book. I don't remember anything about guns, the section on crime focuses mostly on an interesting, but ultimately unconvincing, link between legalizing abortion and The Miracle of the Nineties falling crime rates.

I haven't read the followup Super Freakonomics, but I've read the original.

The only gun-issue that the first book addressed was addressing the relative danger that a gun in the home poses to a child. It wasn't the focus of the chapter, but rather it was an illustrative example of how people (and parents in particular) incorrectly weigh risks.

No one is more susceptible to an expert’s fearmongering than a parent. Fear is in fact a major component of the act of parenting. A parent, after all, is the steward of another creature’s life, a creature who in the beginning is more helpless than the newborn of nearly any other species. This leads a lot of parents to spend a lot of their parenting energy simply being scared.

The problem is that they are often scared of the wrong things. It’s not their fault, really. Separating facts from rumors is always hard work, especially for a busy parent. And the white noise generated by the experts — to say nothing of the pressure exerted by fellow parents — is so overwhelming that they can barely think for themselves. The facts they do manage to glean have usually been varnished or exaggerated or otherwise taken out of context to serve an agenda that isn’t their own.

Consider the parents of an eight-year-old girl named, say, Molly. Her two best friends, Amy and Imani, each live nearby. Molly’s parents know that Amy’s parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead, Molly spends a lot of time at Imani’s house, which has a swimming pool in the backyard. Molly’s parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter.

But according to the data, their choice isn’t smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn’t even close: Molly is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani’s house than in gunplay at Amy’s.

*at the moment they're not, because it's so ridiculously easy to buy them legally in the US. There is no point smuggling them.

There's an obvious parallel with drugs. Legalise recreational drugs in the U.S. and there's no incentive to smuggle them from Mexico. Legalise private firearms in Mexico and BATFE can't construct a moral panic with which politicians can justify further infringement on the right to keep and bear arms in the U.S.

.Darien wrote:

Even if we accept the argument that illegal guns would flood over the border from Mexico (which seems unlikely, as all of the manufacturers are situated in the US, and the current illegal trade goes into Mexico)

Illegal firearms trade into Mexico comes from a variety of sources, mostly within North and South America. There are plenty of military arms sourced from Central and South America, many of them remnants of recent conflicts. At an educated guess the majority of the pistols probably come from the States, because the U.S. market has a wide variety of handguns seldom encountered elsewhere.

Speaking of calm debate, I've noticed there was no discussion about the Freakonomics podcast on the topic. http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/02/14/ ... o-podcast/A very careful look at how to reduce violent crime in the US. Surely, somebody listens to Freakonomics, read the books?

Why should we? I'm pretty sure you said we can make statistics say whatever we want? So now when they are saying something you like we should listen when you ignore peer-reviewed academic research on gun violence?

Why should you? It's an economist's approach to the topic.Say what? USAToday polls are not peer reviewed. A peer-reviewed survey would discuss the issues with their data and what steps they took to overcome the ones they could address.

I'm pretty sure you said we can make statistics say whatever we want? So now when they are saying something you like we should listen when you ignore peer-reviewed academic research on gun violence?

Being peer-reviewed doesn't make a sociological study into fact. All studies need rigorous critical review, and that's why raw data is published. Bellesiles won the Bancroft Prize for Arming America after peer review, albeit scrutiny less systematic than we hope occurs with journal articles, before that work was exposed as blatant fraud. Ars Technica has published articles about the poor state of peer review today.

I don't believe anyone has asserted that peer reviewed surveys or studies are facts, let alone perfect, but rather they provide data that are more useful than the superstition that otherwise pervades this subject.

But according to the data, their choice isn’t smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn’t even close: Molly is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani’s house than in gunplay at Amy’s.

This seems a little sloppy comparing number of swimming pools to number of guns. Wouldn't households with a pool and households with 1 or more guns be a more apple to apples comparison? Pools are nearly universally limited to 1 per household while a household may easily have more than one gun. As we have seen from census type surveys the percentage of households having guns has been steadily declining despite more guns in the country. They are becoming more and more concentrated into multiple-gun homes.

Pools are nearly universally limited to 1 per household while a household may easily have more than one gun.

Of course it's not a perfect comparison. Pools are also much larger than guns. There's also no evidence that multiple-gun households are more likely to have an accident than a single-gun household. Multiple-gun owners have a stronger interest in better storage, after all.

Pools are nearly universally limited to 1 per household while a household may easily have more than one gun.

Of course it's not a perfect comparison. Pools are also much larger than guns. There's also no evidence that multiple-gun households are more likely to have an accident than a single-gun household. Multiple-gun owners have a stronger interest in better storage, after all.

All the more reason to designate as households with and without a pool and households with and without guns and not base it on the number of pools and number of guns.

Then perhaps you should explain what you were talking about, instead of leaving it to the reader to guess. We've discussed near countless studies, polls, and so forth in this thread.

Anything from JAMA or NEJM as well as anything from Hemenway has been routinely hand-waved away by the pro-gun crowd. Usually with a reason as compelling as "they don't understand guns".

Given I don't even know what these acronyms mean, you're barking up the wrong three.

Whether you want to ignore it or not the pro-gun crowd has routinely dismissed studies on gun violence from the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine in this thread and the previous one. But keep your head buried in the sand if you want.

Then perhaps you should explain what you were talking about, instead of leaving it to the reader to guess. We've discussed near countless studies, polls, and so forth in this thread.

Anything from JAMA or NEJM as well as anything from Hemenway has been routinely hand-waved away by the pro-gun crowd. Usually with a reason as compelling as "they don't understand guns".

Given I don't even know what these acronyms mean, you're barking up the wrong three.

Whether you want to ignore it or not the pro-gun crowd has routinely dismissed studies on gun violence from the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine in this thread and the previous one. But keep your head buried in the sand if you want.

Why the fuck would I bury my head in the sand about something I didn't do because you're accusing me of something I didn't do?

Then perhaps you should explain what you were talking about, instead of leaving it to the reader to guess. We've discussed near countless studies, polls, and so forth in this thread.

Anything from JAMA or NEJM as well as anything from Hemenway has been routinely hand-waved away by the pro-gun crowd. Usually with a reason as compelling as "they don't understand guns".

I'm not aware of any studies presented in this thread dismissed anywhere near as glibly by the pro-gun side as you're attempting to portray here. Questioning the conclusions and/or the methodology is not blind dismissal of an inconvenient source. Whereas you seem to be quick to accept anything that appears to support an anti-gun position, regardless of the merits.

This seems a little sloppy comparing number of swimming pools to number of guns. Wouldn't households with a pool and households with 1 or more guns be a more apple to apples comparison? Pools are nearly universally limited to 1 per household while a household may easily have more than one gun. As we have seen from census type surveys the percentage of households having guns has been steadily declining despite more guns in the country. They are becoming more and more concentrated into multiple-gun homes.

Sure, it could have been more eloquently stated, but the authors still aren't wrong. Whether it's 40% or 50% of households, there are still far more households with a gun than their own pool. The first result I could find on Google suggested that 10% of American households have a pool, which actually seems rather on the high side to me. Yet despite that disparity, pools claim the lives of far more young children than gun accidents.

I don't believe anyone has asserted that peer reviewed surveys or studies are facts, let alone perfect, but rather they provide data that are more useful than the superstition that otherwise pervades this subject.

This thread alone illustrates that gun-control advocates are much, much more reliant on supposition than are gun-rights advocates.

I'm not aware of any studies presented in this thread dismissed anywhere near as glibly by the pro-gun side as you're attempting to portray here. Questioning the conclusions and/or the methodology is not blind dismissal of an inconvenient source. Whereas you seem to be quick to accept anything that appears to support an anti-gun position, regardless of the merits.

I guess you haven't read the thread then. Go read Hemenway's book if you are interested in a treatment of the methodology of the studies that are aggregated in it. There's some 80 pages on methodology of the various studies done by what many would consider pro-gun (e.g. Lott) and anti-gun (anything that shows more guns means more lethal violence).

Gun-lovers plan protest in DC with loaded rifles. What have they to protest about? Not enough children shot? -- Richard Dawkins.http://bit.ly/17Ga5Fk

I offer no comment at this time on the wisdom of the planned protest referenced in the link, but I think Dawkin's comment is illustrative of the reason why gun-owners simply can't trust gun control advocates.

Gun owners and the organizations that represent them are routinely portrayed as murders and child-killers. That this comes from a self-appointed figurehead for reason and rational discourse is all the more disappointing.

Gun owners and the organizations that represent them are routinely portrayed as murders and child-killers. That this comes from a self-appointed figurehead for reason and rational discourse is all the more disappointing.

Then they shouldn't act like people being shot and killed, be it children or adults, in murders, suicides, or accidents are simply collateral damage for their sport shooting hobby.

Gun-lovers plan protest in DC with loaded rifles. What have they to protest about? Not enough children shot? -- Richard Dawkins.http://bit.ly/17Ga5Fk

I offer no comment at this time on the wisdom of the planned protest referenced in the link, but I think Dawkin's comment is illustrative of the reason why gun-owners simply can't trust gun control advocates.

Gun owners and the organizations that represent them are routinely portrayed as murders and child-killers. That this comes from a self-appointed figurehead for reason and rational discourse is all the more disappointing.

Very true, it's not a great line.

Quote:

This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.

There’s a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting. We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

The organizers aren't helping themselves, though. Rarely does it make sense, nor garner sympathy, when you whine about your lost liberty and make thinly veiled threats right after the Senate comes down on your side.

It's a pretty crude example, no doubt. Of course it's an early proof of concept.

It's worth noting that they gave themselves a harder than necessary task, by dictating that the entire gun be 3D printed. It would have been substantially easier if they'd have used some common hardware store components like metal pipes and springs, instead of trying to print the entire thing.

Quote:

I guess you haven't read the thread then. Go read Hemenway's book if you are interested in a treatment of the methodology of the studies that are aggregated in it. There's some 80 pages on methodology of the various studies done by what many would consider pro-gun (e.g. Lott) and anti-gun (anything that shows more guns means more lethal violence).

I've been following this thread, but of course you know that. Right now all you're doing is making baseless claims about your opponents in this thread, which you can't even be bothered to cite where they allegedly did what you claim they're doing.

It's a pretty crude example, no doubt. Of course it's an early proof of concept.

It's worth noting that they gave themselves a harder than necessary task, by dictating that the entire gun be 3D printed. It would have been substantially easier if they'd have used some common hardware store components like metal pipes and springs, instead of trying to print the entire thing.

This gun was in the news the other day. Ars even had a story on it. The point wasn't to easily make a homemade firearm it was to see how the download print a gun idea is in reality. As much as some poster love to throw out firefly quotes converting the signal into something useable isn't quite there yet. At least at a price or legal status to satisfy them.

It seems much more practical to print a gun so that the material it's made of doesn't melt in the printing process. For example, the printer could have two adjacent nozzles that squirt different materials that form a composite upon hardening. The composite would have a higher melting point than the materials it's made of, so the gun would be strong even if the plastics it's made of are malleable enough to print with. I don't know much about materials so I don't know if such a process is currently feasible.

It seems much more practical to print a gun so that the material it's made of doesn't melt in the printing process. For example, the printer could have two adjacent nozzles that squirt different materials that form a composite upon hardening. The composite would have a higher melting point than the materials it's made of, so the gun would be strong even if the plastics it's made of are malleable enough to print with. I don't know much about materials so I don't know if such a process is currently feasible.

Well, I don't know of any thermosetting plastics that would do what you want. Making a composite structure really doesn't affect the melting point of the matrix at all. You could use some sort of two-part epoxy resin, but those need to be decently well-mixed before they'll cure, are generally too liquid for this sort of deposition if you're looking at higher-strength epoxies, and take quite a while to cure. It would definitely be much, much easier to makerbot most of the components of a gun, while machining the ones that require high strength (primarily the barrel and whatever acts as the breech) out of steel on a CNC lathe.

I'm not sure where this obsession with 100% 3D-printing something comes from, but it really overlooks how trivially easy it is to make a firearm now, without even using that technology. I'm guessing it gets coverage on tech sites because most of the geeks in parts like this wouldn't know an end mill from a center punch.

^^^ Edit: I think I mentioned it in this thread or the previous one, but SLS is not a technology that's going to be available for cheap use in the home in the foreseeable future, if eve.

the thing that surprises me about the disinterest in the Freakonomics piece is that these guys are not pro-gun. They just prefer results over hysterics.

I think you are widely underestimating the reluctance to listen to audio or watch video. With very limited exceptions I absolutely refuse to do so, and I've seen many others say the same over the years.

It's an incredibly inefficient means of communicating information and life is short.

the thing that surprises me about the disinterest in the Freakonomics piece is that these guys are not pro-gun. They just prefer results over hysterics.

I think you are widely underestimating the reluctance to listen to audio or watch video. With very limited exceptions I absolutely refuse to do so, and I've seen many others say the same over the years.

It's an incredibly inefficient means of communicating information, and life is short.

Indeed, and I've fought hard to convince Ars to do transcripts whenever they do video/audio articles. Sadly, it seems that just isn't going to happen.

the thing that surprises me about the disinterest in the Freakonomics piece is that these guys are not pro-gun. They just prefer results over hysterics.

I've listened to the podcast (kind of stretching to call it a "piece") and just listened to it again. They don't provide a transcript and it's not good enough to demand lots of replays.

It's interesting, but it's not particularly revolutionary. Levitt's opinion seems to be that the US does have uniquely high gun violence* due to high prevalence of existing guns but thinks it's not politically possible to really do anything about that. He knocks gun buyback programs because they don't get guns from dangerous people and they get a ridiculously low number of weapons in total, making it a poor cost / benefit fit. His criticism over that and "current legislation" (his is nonspecific about which legislation) is that it can't go far enough to deal with existing guns, which don't perish and this is a politically insurmountable problem that is a waste of time to pursue.

He definitely is interested in results and claims mandatory sentence enhancement for crimes with guns show evidence of deterrence. So that's actionable, I suppose. He suggests investigating the possibility institutionalizing the mentally incompetent, which is a weird suggestion given his apparent love of metrics and cost/benefit, which he actually acknowledges. He actually seems to kind of support the increased reporting of mental issues, but then rightly notes how it could induce people to withold information from their therapist or doctor. He makes vague gestures to being better parents and stuff. Pretty rote stuff.

In a fairly hilarious aside, he also says people are "kind of whacked" to think that guns are a fundamental part of society and that it's a peculiarity of the time and place of the country's formation that the US finds itself with such widespread sentiment. He also agrees that guns are "great disruptors of the natural order" (care of "Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence") and that the "armed society is a polite society" is actually not a deterrent to interpersonal conflict.

Anyways, there's more, but it's a weird podcast to trot out as being specially unique or elucidating.

*He says "gun violence" most of the time, so it's odd to see some folks champion this piece as some sort of sober, analytical approach to violence and guns.

It's a pretty crude example, no doubt. Of course it's an early proof of concept.

It's worth noting that they gave themselves a harder than necessary task, by dictating that the entire gun be 3D printed. It would have been substantially easier if they'd have used some common hardware store components like metal pipes and springs, instead of trying to print the entire thing.

It is a chess move. This is to show that banning is pointless. It is also a PR move/publicity stunt.The idea is that you cannot prevent people from owning something everyone can simply make easily at home (with a full ban you will still do hard time for owning it). Easily is the issue. Zip guns like this have been around a long time. You could easily mill out a hand cannon if you have the know how (my cousin was doing this on his own when he was 12). You need the steel tube, the black powder, a cap, and a handle. Most do not have the know how. Printing the same thing is in a lot more people's skill range.They already had someone print an AR lower, which seems to be a much better example of showing that anyone can have a private gun if they want it after a ban. This again is a much easier bar to pass than people finishing their own 80%s http://www.tacticalmachining.com/80-pro ... r-kit.html or 95%s (I did not think this was legally "not a fire arm") http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html? ... 4&t=204687

the thing that surprises me about the disinterest in the Freakonomics piece is that these guys are not pro-gun. They just prefer results over hysterics.

I think you are widely underestimating the reluctance to listen to audio or watch video. With very limited exceptions I absolutely refuse to do so, and I've seen many others say the same over the years.

It's an incredibly inefficient means of communicating information and life is short.

I wasn't sure whether Dragondazd was referring to a reluctant/disinterest here, or if this was further commentary on how Market Place apparently refused to air the segment.

Regarding the Soap Box discussion specifically, I pretty much never do audio/video content either. I listen to NPR because I can't read while I'm driving, otherwise I prefer my news and information to be text based.

On thate note I've been meaning to catch Colion Noir's video segments now that he's joined the NRA News team. It's nice that they finally broke away from the old-white-guy thing.

Well I feel sorry for you guys. I go through a lot of podcasts when I'm on the train/ferry/subway. I also can't play angry birds while reading. I also don't buy internet while flying.

No, I was not intending to bring up the Marketplace thing again, but you know, they have some say in which pieces they want to buy. The authors are clearly not pro-gun, but at least they can put things into statistical perspective and that's something that a good number of people can't manage to even fathom.